


ending with letting go

by Marishna



Series: earth and history [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Creeper Peter, Dreams, Full Shift Werewolves, M/M, Nogitsune, POV Peter Hale, Possession, Post-Nogitsune, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marishna/pseuds/Marishna
Summary: The nogitsune still comes to him in dreams.





	ending with letting go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "riddle" over at fullmoon-ficlet on LJ.

The nogitsune still comes to him in dreams.

Peter doesn't fall asleep easily, even when he's in a place he knows is safe and he's protected. He knows what he's done, he's not stupid. His instincts go against his need to shut his eyes every now and then and so it's difficult for him to get more than a handful of restless hours a night, at best. 

It's when he's very tired, and his mind and body finally succumb to the tempting pull of slumber, that he usually sees him.

Always as Stiles. Always.

The nogitsune knows his weakness and takes joy in Peter’s vulnerable state. It laughs at him sometimes, flashing images of Stiles at Jungle, hand wrapped around his full cock and staring Peter down from across the room. 

Sometimes it speaks to him with Stiles’ empty dark eyes somehow glittering through the otherwise flat deadness of his expression. Sometimes it whispers and tosses its voice from the hollow corners of Peter’s mind, dredging up all the awful things he's done. The morsels of guilt that live inside him rise to the surface in those moments and sometimes force him out of sleep so he's left alone and shuddering in the pitch black of his room. On those nights it takes him days to shake it off and push the guilt back down.

But much like Peter himself the nogitsune is erratic and enjoys playing games. It’s a trickster, after all. 

Peter is a fair match for the games on those nights the trickster presents itself with a game to play. Peter can see that he frustrates the nogitsune a little more each time he ties or wins. It puts a smile on his face when he wakes in the morning, and the continued exhaustion is worth it in small doses.

This night the nogitsune once again appears in Stiles’ form with an evil smirk that twists the boy’s face in a pinched, stressed way. In past visits, Peter has always had free reign of movement in his own dreams and he treated their tête-à-tête somewhat akin to playing chess with death: civilized and perhaps even friendly, with the right framing.

But now he’s pinned down on his bed, invisible restraints holding him down at the wrists and ankles. He snarls but Stiles pays him no mind and instead stands at the side of Peter’s bed. 

_”People can find me in the dark. In the light, they cannot find me. I guess because sometimes I am light, sometimes I am dark and sometimes I am both. Who am I?”_

Peter wants to swear and threaten him, an empty promise of a nasty, bloody death but he’s already thinking about the riddle. There’s something the nogitsune wants him to know, but what? 

It takes him longer than he’d ever admit to anyone but he feels triumphant all the same when he opens his mouth to smugly say, “The moon”. 

Except he can’t. His mouth is reforming, moving and changing, as he tries to moan out a question about how or why. His arms and legs are suddenly free but Peter can only scream as his bones shatter and collapse against his will. He’s shifting too quickly, into a form he hasn’t taken in years since he was an alpha. 

Stiles’ whiskey eyes are the last thing he sees vibrantly before his vision slides into sharper, but colorless, focus. In the time it takes Peter to roll himself onto his newly shifted paws on the bed the nogitsune is gone and an unbidden howl rips its way out of him, echoing in the still night. 

Peter’s need to runhuntchasekill is too much all at once and he shatters a window on his way out to give into his driving instincts. As he runs, tearing up the underbrush with his heavy footfalls on all fours, a quiet thought passes through his mind as the last piece of his humanity for long hours that stretch into days. 

Wasn’t this all just in his head? And if it was… how?

When he comes to it’s over 53 hours later and he’s sprawled in some leaves and dirt in an area of woods Peter later realized was almost at the damn Oregon border. 

It’s a couple weeks later before Peter sees Stiles again, in person for once. He rolls his eyes at Peter when he strolls into the loft as if he were invited but otherwise ignores Peter. It loosens an invisible band Peter never realized was holding tight around his heart and he can relax. 

Later, when Peter decides to slip out while Scott’s perfect pack bonds, he’s joined in the elevator at the last second by Stiles who’s holding a fistful of bills to pay the pizza guy when he arrives.

The elevator is slow but it doesn’t have to stop on any other floors so it’s a mercifully short ride. Stiles steps out first and Peter brushes past him without a word.

“Glad you found your way back,” Stiles calls out before Peter leaves the entrance area.

He turns back to face Stiles slowly. “Excuse me?” he asks, deadly quiet.

“You haven’t been around much. Figured you got lost or something,” Stiles says with a casual shrug. 

It’s so innocent but there’s something…

Stiles steps forward, Peter moves back. 

Stiles laughs.

But it doesn’t reach his eyes. They darken, flatten out even as they glint at Peter predatorily. 

Peter’s torn between fight or flight, fear and arousal. He only has a second to consider before there’s a sharp rap on the door to the building and Stiles steps forward to greet the pizza guy, joking and sarcastic like usual. 

Peter doesn’t hesitate and disappears, slipping out the door before Stiles can stop him. And Peter has no doubt he could, among a great many things.

Peter’s just not sure he’s ready to be one of those things, even if he has it coming. 

Even if he wants it.


End file.
